


But Alas, The Galaxy Is Not Kind

by zarabithia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 10:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15839385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: If the galaxy had been kind, Ahsoka would have had the luxury of blushing through the lie. But then, if the galaxy had been more kind, she and Rex would still be with Anakin and Obi-Wan, and not hiding from an evil regime spearheaded by the chancellor they had all served and enforced by men Rex had called brothers.





	But Alas, The Galaxy Is Not Kind

"You don’t understand. You can’t.”

The tiny freighter that they are hitching a ride in is smaller than a Jedi and a former clone commander are used to.

But those titles are a life time ago. To the unknowing pilot, they are _Ashla_ and _Ryan_ , star-crossed lovers trying to escape disapproving parents.

If the galaxy had been _kind_ , Ahsoka would have had the luxury of blushing through the lie. But then, if the galaxy had been more kind, she and Rex would still be with Anakin and Obi-Wan, and not hiding from an evil regime spearheaded by the chancellor they had all served and enforced by men Rex had called brothers.

Since the galaxy is not kind, Ahsoka is denied the right to star longingly at the soldier next to her and wonder what it might be like to allow herself to want to kiss him.

In her heart, she can hear Obi-Wan sighing at her foolishness and Anakin’s gentle teasing and both tickle her heart enough that she would allow herself to cry … if the galaxy cared about her tears. 

Instead, she catches a quick glance at his lips before turning her gaze back to the stars.

“You’re right,” she says softly. “I don’t know what it’s like to fight my brothers. Mine… are gone.”

She doesn’t mean to make it a contest about which one of them is suffering more. There’s enough agony in this new status quo (that isn’t new at all, but Ahsoka refuses to let it become something that is familiar) to go around.

But Rex turns his gaze to her, and when he places a hand on her shoulder, his face is full of even more regret.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be. You’re right,” she argues. “This … war, it’s giving us both all sorts of experience we don’t want, right?”

He barks a gruff laugh at that, and the silence that stretches on is full of shared grief.

*

Later, after Endor, she finds Rex again.

“I hear you’re quite the hero,” she says, and her eyes are shining with tears that could have shed, if just one shot had gone the wrong way.

“I had some help. A Skywalker on my side, even,” he says.

And maybe then, she doesn’t hold the flinch back the way she should.

“There are rumors, about Vader,” he says. “Are they true?”

She wonders how those rumors began. She can’t imagine that Luke or Leia would have said anything. But then, of what Ahsoka has seen of Luke, he is worse at not showing his feelings than his father had been. Maybe Rex had simply put together the secret the rest of the galaxy couldn’t know. 

The question is so direct. It’s the kind of direct that is born of friendship and battles that only three other people could claim as their own.

All three of them are dead, Ahsoka thinks, and the bitterness in her throat tastes like smoke and molten metal.

“You were wrong,” she says finally in reply to his answer. “When you told me I wouldn’t know … what it was like to fight against … my brother.”

She closes her eyes, because _brother_ is the wrong word. It’s not deep enough. But brother isn’t deep enough to describe the way that Rex had felt for the clones he’s been fighting since Mandalore, either.

She wonders if it is a comfort or a curse to him that most of them are dead. She knows now that Anakin is truly gone, and she still doesn’t know whether she should be relieved that he is one with the Force.

Relieved for _him_ , perhaps, but never for herself.

His hand squeezes her shoulder, but this time is accompanied by a kiss to her temple.

“We keep on getting experiences we don’t want, huh, kid?” he says, and Rex’s voice fills her with the kind of warmth that finally subdues the chill she’d felt inside since she’d fought Anakin.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Rex,” she says with an almost laugh. “I’m afraid we both got old.”

“At least we were able to,” Rex says. “That could be a comfort.”

And indeed, it could be. It is, Ahsoka supposes.

But the next comfort comes from the next kiss, which is not a chaste forehead kiss at all, because the star-crossed lovers have finally found their way home.


End file.
